Kabam Hits Profitability in 2012 on Revenue of $180 Million

Kabam doesn’t have to report earnings since it’s privately held, but that didn’t stop it from saying today that it was profitable last year on gross revenue of $180 million.

The game maker started off as a Facebook developer, but over the past year has moved aggressively into mobile gaming. It is known for building mid-core social games, including such hits as Kingdoms of Camelot and The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth.

In this case, the numbers are the equivilent of a public company’s bookings, Kabam said. That means the figures do not take into account the 30 percent cut that Kabam must pay to Facebook or Apple when items are purchased inside of games.

By releasing the numbers today, Kabam gets out in front of social gaming leader Zynga, which will report 2012 results next Tuesday. Despite Zynga’s recent challenges, it still is expecting to record bookings of up to $1.1 billion in 2012.

It is important to note, however, that Zynga’s bookings already take into account the 30 percent cut it pays to Facebook and others, which means the comparison is not exactly accurate. A better comparison would be Zynga’s 2012 gross revenues, which won’t be reported until next week.

“Kabam blew past its plan in 2012,” said Kabam’s co-founder and CEO Kevin Chou in a statement. “At this time last year we forecast 2012 revenue to grow by 30 to 40 percent. Because of our team’s focus on strategic growth across diverse game genres and platforms, including mobile and the Web, we exceeded our own expectations.”

Kabam attributed its rapid growth to diversifying beyond Facebook. At the end of 2011, nearly all of the company’s revenue was coming exclusively from the social network. Now, it also has games on iOS, Android and the Web. Additionally, it said seven of its games grossed more than $1 million a month in 2012.

Based on the company’s last fundraising in May 2011, it was valued privately at $500 million. The valuation would have been determined before Zynga went public, and before there was anything directly comparable on the public market, so it easily could have changed by now.

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